This is a test drive I wrote for my own auto-blog which I am not going to link here. This is a 2010 Honda CR-Z with the CVT. Recently imported from Japan by a friend who was kind enough to let me have a go in it.

Now, I am not Jalopnik or Top Gear so I can't get cars for days to review them in full but I do look upto my stars and often wonder, that not many of us get that much time and so what would we make out of a car in such a short time because first impression is the last.

I didn't initially wrote it with respect to Jalopnik's crowd but I am still sharing hoping Two Hour Reviews my actually become something.

Time: 04:30:01 (Start)

If I had known the amount of attention I would be getting from all walks
of life as I sat in the low back seated position of the loaned CR-Z, I
would've shaved, settled my escaping hair, and dressed a bit better to
match the exuberance of the car. f it
fails at anything that we're about to write on, it sure is one hell of a
head turner as it does look like kind of a space ship amidst all the Civic, Corollas, Land Cruiser and Suzukis in the traffic.

That made us also think what if we were in a Ferrari or a Lambo?
From brand-spanking-new Land Cruisers to Corollas to Swifts to the poor
people politicians no longer care about, it moved everyone heads like a
supermodel in a mini-skirt on a windy day.

Cheers to the glorious traffic of Khalid Bin Waleed road, as good as
the CR-Z may look, however it was shoved in the darkest corners of the
show room and getting it out was one tough job when there were quite a
few of lines of cars to be moved on to the road but the rush hour soon
approaching, this wasn't an easy job which only meant our time spent
with the car decreased as the car had to be delivered back by 8 PM and
it was 4.30 already.

But it was out soon and we went out on the packed roads of Karachi to know how this is what it looks to be. A Sports Hybrid.

The dial looks a lot like the 458 and MP4 and turn on the ignition and you're welcomed by a chaos of bright lights
who all come to life giving you a lively feel and the RPM touches the
top of its band to greet you. Its all sort of awesome you know.

In my opinion, this is a Honda that tries too hard to impress the Prius party and as well as the sports hatchback enthusiasts. Its rather surprising Honda didn't lose it completely in the confusion.

It is an economical sports
cars that suits two people rather perfectly. Two more can sit behind on
the rear seats if a) they have no legs and, b) they have no heads as
well, it's the perfect axe murderer vehicle for when you need to
transport torsos fast. It is in essence a two-seater, two-door sports
cars that shuts down when you come to a dead stop automatically.

Yup, the air-con shuts down as well as batteries fight their way back
and take control of electronics single-handedly, as you sit out the red
light or a traffic jam. However, the car has climate-control what would
normally be referred to as A/C so when the climate control
thinks its getting higher than the set temperature by the human, it
kicks the engine back to work and the compressor kicks in. Though we
must mention that when we increased the fan speed, the noise was worse
than of Maruti 800's A/C on full speed.

Regardless, the air-con was great. It kept us cool as the CVT
transmission made sure that we didn't feel any gear change at all in a
sports car. Yeah, in your head, you're Vin Diesel, and this isn't
Pakistan but this is Fast and Furious 69 and you have a contender for
respect in town, you line up against them in your Sports Hybrid on the
red light. You switch the car in the Sports mode and position your hands
in 10-10 position on the steering as two of your fingers fix behind the
flappy-paddle to shift and you launch! From first to second and the
gear change is so smooth, I mean so smooth that you didn't feel the gear
change while looking at the road for bikers and peasants, you forget to
change gear and only found out at past 100 that you're in 5th gear!

The car has great grip and traction control whose effect we couldn't
notice in a straight line but we did manage to take a curve or two at
some speed and there was minimal body roll and no tyre squealing. If it
wasn't a loaner and we actually owned, you might as well call us stupid
for going against the laws of physics then.

But how did you came to 5th gear without changing? Because the CR-Z
isn't as dumb as you racing on traffic lights. The CVT transmission doesn't actually have gears, partly because it is
used in hybrid cars because it helps in fuel economy and is as smooth as Angelina Jolie's legs. The car's onboard computer shifts the gears for
you beyond the redline if you don't shift up yourself soon even in
manual sports mode. The manual mode I reckon is there to make you feel like a sports car but it isn't.

You can say that the car is actually quite clever, there are three
modes in the car, one is Eco mode which I am sure you know what it does,
than there's normal mode and finally, there's the sports mode for the
fast and the furious.

Here's how the the speedo looks in different modes:

Green for Eco (Yeah, we somehow can't find the green pic), Blue for Normal and Red for Sports.

Coming on to the modes, even if you've selected say for example,
Sports mode but you're too dumb to understand that you're in a
bumper-to-bumper to traffic or a road like the sea view where there is a
speed bump once after two steps. It decides that you were in the wrong
mode according to your movement and the lights change to green is when
you notice that the car is now in Eco mode by itself.

Since we have mentioned speed bumps, this car as low as it may look
but it cleared the obnoxious speed bumps like a bird. There isn't a
speed bump that can hug its underneath.

Moving on to the roads of Karachi, riddled with pot-holes, the roads of
Karachi seem like the game of Mine Sweeper. You won't survive for too
long and that's when we realized that regardless the mode you're in,
this is car has a stiff suspension but because it's a Sports Hybrid. You
know that feeling you get when you sit in a new car and you hear
everything and feels soft or firm but you do feel everything, that's the
feeling we got here so thinking over a period of time, you'll feel the
roads like in any normal locally built car. Simply put; the ride is
above average.

The car is surprisingly dim-witted to exploit those gaps found in
Pakistani traffic which gets you ahead and home quickly because the
power lies very high at 4,500 RPM, everything before it just noise.
Pointless noise. You press the accelerator in hope then expectation
frankly. Or, you have to switch to Sports mode and downshift feverishly
to come in the right gear which is at 4,500 RPM to launch ahead.

But that doesn't mean it isn't powerful, it is quite powerful with
manual mode having 7 forward gears or chances on which you can change to your liking
but miss one shift and it'll do it for you.

The gear changes are smooth as I've said above, the car has
tv/satnav/rear-cam/hdd/dvd/cd but not a dishwasher however the list goes
on and on and you're dumb-founded to know that you were not even in the
fully loaded model.

But the mileage was beyond terrific, I mean we're in a sports car and we don't have to worry about fuel. It's almost sorcery!

The street kid's face lit up when we arrived in the car park and whether we bought the flowers or not, he just wanted his picture taken with his dream spaceship.

Its a pretty good car and but after two and a half hours, I don't want to buy it. Sure I'll save fuel and in the process I'll get a bit of fun as well but I'll save less fuel and have a bit more fun in some small car like the GT-86 but that's the Jalop in me speaking.

If it has left me confused in two and a half hours, pretty sure the manual one will convince me if I drove it for a day to be my new DD.